Articles about Obituary

Tom Huseby, 1947-2024: Longtime startup investor and advisor remembered for his wisdom and wit

[Editor’s Note: This obituary of Tom Huseby, founder of SeaPoint Ventures and a longtime member of the Seattle tech community,… Read More

Michael Smyers, 1983-2023: Gifted engineer and startup founder sparked Coinme and Zipwhip

Michael Smyers, a software engineer and startup entrepreneur who played a formative role in Seattle tech companies Zipwhip and Coinme,… Read More

Richard Tait, 1964-2022: ‘Cranium’ inventor and serial entrepreneur was ‘the ultimate dreamer’

Richard Tait, the longtime Seattle entrepreneur who co-founded the wildly popular board game “Cranium” after spending 10 years at Microsoft,… Read More

Jonathan Burstein, 1976-2022: Engineer, investor and entrepreneur was a natural problem-solver

Jonathan Burstein, who co-founded voice technology startup Jargon and made a lasting impact at Seattle-area tech companies including Microsoft, Amazon,… Read More

Robert Winglee, 1958-2020: UW’s ‘Rocket Man’ launched thousands of space and science careers

The global aerospace community and students across the Northwest have lost a researcher, mentor and “Rocket Man” who inspired and… Read More

Nick Pearson-Franks, 1979-2020: Boeing engineer turned Pebblebee co-founder was a trusted friend

Nick Pearson-Franks was working at Boeing around 2012 as a lead software engineer when his friend and colleague Daniel Daoura… Read More

Manny Vellon, 1960-2020: Towering figure in Seattle tech was an engineer at heart

Manny Vellon was a software engineer and Seattle startup founder legendary among colleagues and customers for his ability to find… Read More

Sallie Cook, 1941-2018: Longtime journalist was a guiding force for GeekWire

Sallie Cook, a no-nonsense former newspaper reporter who passed along her love for journalism to her youngest son, GeekWire co-founder… Read More

Bard Richmond, 1950-2017: Former Active Voice CEO was a pioneer in voice messaging software and early advocate for homeless issues

Seattle tech entrepreneur and philanthropist Bard Richmond — a pioneer in the telecom industry who founded Active Voice Corp. in… Read More

Stephen ‘Stepto’ Toulouse, 1972-2017: Microsoft mainstay handled tough jobs with authority, humor

Stephen Toulouse, a former longtime Microsoft employee who became known to gamers around the world as the tough but good-natured… Read More

Howard Schmidt, 1949-2017: America’s digital guardian angel led cybersecurity for Microsoft, eBay and two Presidents

Howard Schmidt had an incredible American life. He was cyberczar to two presidents – a Republican and a Democrat. Before… Read More

Seattle software pioneer Doug Walker dies in New Year’s eve hiking accident on Granite Mountain

Doug Walker, who co-founded the Seattle software company WRQ in 1981 and later went on to become one of the… Read More

Former F5 Networks and Isilon technology executive Brett Helsel passes away at the age of 54

Brett Helsel, who played a key role in shaping the Seattle technology community through senior engineering roles at F5 Networks… Read More

Former Washington State Investment Board chief Joe Dear dies at 62

Joe Dear, the former head of the Washington State Investment Board and past Chief of Staff for Washington State Governor Gary… Read More

Mitch Hill, 1958-2013: Former Avanade and Opscode CEO was a fierce competitor who led with quiet confidence

Mitch Hill, the former CEO of Avanade and Opscode, passed away Wednesday after a nine-month battle with pancreatic cancer. He… Read More

UW computer science professor Ben Taskar passes away at 36

Ben Taskar, a rising star in the University of Washington’s Department of Computer Science & Engineering, passed away on Sunday… Read More

Kim Thompson, 1956-2013: Fantagraphics co-publisher helped shape the comic book industry

Kim Thompson, the pioneering comics publisher who along with Gary Groth helped define the comics book industry though their Fantagraphics… Read More

Obituary: Angel investor Bob Arnold helped dozens of entrepreneurs take flight

Seattle lost one of its most prolific angel investors last month when former banking executive Robert Arnold died at the… Read More

Remembering Bill Hill: The most important operating system is Homo Sapiens 1.0

“I always talk about this to folks at Microsoft, especially to developers. What’s the most important operating system you’ll write… Read More

George Rathmann, 1927-2012: Biotech pioneer led Amgen and Icos

George Rathmann, the biotechnology pioneer who served as the first CEO of Amgen and Icos, has died at the age… Read More

Micron CEO Steve Appleton, 51, dies in plane crash

Steve Appleton, the CEO and chairman of semiconductor company Micron Technology, died this morning in a small plane crash in… Read More

Matt Steckler, 1975-2011: A creative force with a million crazy ideas

No idea was too small, too silly or too offbeat for Matt Steckler, a Seattle developer and entrepreneur who died… Read More

Google engineer Steve Lacey victim of Kirkland car wreck

Google engineer Steve Lacey, 43, a veteran of the Seattle region’s tech community who worked for more than a decade… Read More